


The Shadow

by afteriwake



Series: The Summer Of 100 Surprise Stories - Summer 2018 [29]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Drifting Through Life, F/M, Finding Purpose, Keeping Molly Safe, Minor Sherlock Holmes/Molly Hooper, One-Sided Relationship, POV Sebastian Moran, Protective Mary Morstan, Watching, protective sebastian moran
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-19
Updated: 2018-06-19
Packaged: 2019-05-25 06:52:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14971469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/afteriwake/pseuds/afteriwake
Summary: He'd always drifted through life without much purpose...until her.





	The Shadow

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Dreamin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dreamin/gifts).



> So this fic was claimed by **Dreamin** for my summer stories collection (“ _ikigai – lit. 'a reason for being.' ‘a reason to get up in the morning.’ to enjoy the meaning of life – passion, purpose, something one lives for_ ”). It's short and not actually Sebolly, but I think it's a decent answer.

There hadn’t been much over the years that he would say was important to him. Before Molly, he’d drifted from employer to employer. Jim had been one of the last because it was through Jim he met Molly. She was supposed to have been the access point to Holmes, and he’d shadowed her for weeks, learning about her. Passing the information on to his boss.

It wasn’t until he’d discarded her that he realized there was something about her that had made him pause.

Oh, Molly was supposed to be spared no matter what Holmes did on that roof. That had been all Jim. But he’d felt, at least when Jim was gone, that if Holmes really wasn’t dead and there were more enemies of his in the woodwork, they might not be so forgiving.

So it went from letting her go to keeping her safe.

He was good at being a shadow. He’d had more practice than any human being should have at existing without really existing. And things had gone swimmingly until _she_ had entered the picture.

Rosamund.

Oh, he could tell that _she_ could tell Molly was being shadowed. She’d always been too damn clever. Even though she was supposedly out of the game Jim had never approached her because she would have, in every sense, gotten the upper hand. All the time. And it would have driven Jim beyond the pale.

But then, here she was having dinners with the Watson bloke and making friends with Molly in the process and he just knew, eventually, she’d give him up.

Miraculously? She never did.

At least not to Molly. Not even to Holmes’s brother. She’d just fixed him in her scope one night and waved, knowing he’d see her on the roof of Molly’s home. That was Rosamund’s “touch her and I’ll shoot you through your scope” warning, one he knew damn well he’d better heed.

So he disappeared, melted into the shadows, moved where the money went. It wasn’t until he heard about Norbury he drifted back to London. And Molly still had Holmes, sort of. He’d gone round the bend, become a heroin-addicted mess, but he knew if there was fight Holmes would bear down on whoever was hurting Molly like a dying dog getting hold of a meaty bone.

Didn’t mean he couldn’t have help.

Hadn’t counted on Holmes’s sister. Hadn’t counted on Sherrinford, or the house of horrors, or the call. Hadn’t counted on Holmes actually having _feelings_.

Hadn’t counted on his own gnawing jealousy.

But he’d stayed back. Protected. Because through it all, without her ever knowing it, Molly had given him a purpose. And as long as Molly was safe, he’d be happy.

Or, at least, happy enough.

That’s what having a purpose did, apparently. It gave him a reason to wake up in the morning. 

She just never had to know.


End file.
